Changing Tracks

Reinviting The Spirit Of Indian Railway

How to make a 150-year-old run faster, carry more load and make more money In the year 2000, the Indian Railways – the world’s second largest railway network under a single management was nearly bankrupt. Over the next eight years,however, there was a dramatic improvement in its performance. From a cash surplus before dividend of Rs 1,071 crores in 2000, it achieved an estimated Rs 25,000 crores (or around Rs 13,000 crores after accounting for all expenditures, receipts and depreciation) in 2008. Alongside came a dynamic and differential tariff policy, and technical changes that led to an enhanced carrying capacity. How all this was accomplished is the focus of this riveting study of change and innovation in the Indian Railways. Based on an extensive examination of internal documents of the Railways and in-depth interviews with key people involved in the change process, authors V. Nilakant and S. Ramnarayan identify four distinctive features associated with the organization’s renewal between 2004 and 2008. The change leveraged the strengths of the organization, instead of being preoccupied with its weaknesses. The aim was to change mindsets about costs, revenues, investment and business models. The momentum of the change process was sustained by fostering positive emotions. Changes were persistently and patiently seen to completion by focusing on results. Confronting several myths about organizational change, the book offers powerful lessons for managers and administrators grappling with the challenges of generating innovation and improving performance radically in a changing world.

V. Nilakant is on the faculty of the Department of Management at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. He has worked with a variety of organizations in New Zealand, India, Australia and Malaysia on management development around change-related issues.He received his PhD from the Case Western Reserve University. He worked at the Tata Management Training Centre in Pune and co-authored the critically acclaimed Managing Organizational Change, based on case studies of forty-seven Indian organizations, and Change Management: Altering Mindsets in a Global Context.